Berserk (2016): “Blood Flow of the Dead”

It’s weird – I had a lot to say about the previous episode. But when I sit down a week later: basically nothing.

In all likelihood, an episode like “Blood Flow of the Dead” is the best Berserk (2016) will be. This is when things come together – characters, scenarios, and they’ve had eight episodes of being slowly brought to the center. I would almost say it’s clever how things have been brought to this point, where everyone in the tower has their own skin in the game, but I still remember what show I’m watching.

The last two episodes were good, and this episode was good, but the build-up has not been worth it. And I’m not entirely sure what kind of payoff would. But I need to stop these recaps because they’re getting highly repetitive. Berserk is just gonna keep going like this, and that’s fine. It’s an okay show, as we watch it in realtime. It will be looked back upon with no fondness, when we get an actual reboot sometime later.

Seems men deserve their cruel priests and evil gods, and that the anime world has moved on. In that, there’s a lot going on in the Crunchyroll catalogue. Berserk is a staple of the form, but this one’s a pretty poor showing, especially relatively speaking.

First Assault is like the Berserk (2016) of Ghost in the Shell. Nice to look at, though

When Guts arrives – with some ‘tude by Puck – I smile. He really is quite good, but he’s summoned by violence against women, which I didn’t tolerate in Mad Max 4, but somehow it’s different here. It’s been troubling, these past two months.

By episode 11 or 12, Guts will have rescued Casca from Mozgus. It will not be right away, not when Mozgus and the wreckn crew can surprise Guts and send him out of the tower for a reunion with Skull Knight.

Maybe this is the awkward part of Berserk, where the team is being put together. Kind of like Ghost in the Shell: Arise. It’s better when everyone’s together, so it doesn’t feel like we’re directionless, or that the source of conflict is given the backseat to the origin story. With something like Berserk, there’s a goal ahead, and I know we spend a lot of time dilly-dallying.

To postpone even the dilly-dallying for people to catch their breath after the Eclipse… It’s too much to handle week-to-week, or rather, not enough to handle…?

Well, it was fun, somewhat. I’ll be back with more different takes on anime and other media. A Generic Wonderful doesn’t yet have an identity, but I’m thinking about it.